Luke Rhinehart | |
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 Luke Rhinehart signing copies of Invasion in 2016. | |
| Born | George Powers Cockcroft November 15, 1932 Albany, New York, U.S. |
| Died | November 6, 2020 (aged 87) Canaan, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Humor |
| Notable works | The Dice Man (1971) Adventures of Wim (1986) The Search for the Dice Man (1993) |
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George Powers Cockcroft (November 15, 1932 – November 6, 2020), widely known by the pen name Luke Rhinehart, was an American novelist, screenwriter, and nonfiction writer.[1] He is best known for his 1971 novel The Dice Man, the story of a psychiatrist who experiments with making life decisions based on the roll of a dice.[2]
The Dice Man was critically well received and a commercial success. It quickly became[3] and remains a cult classic.[4][5] It was followed by two spiritual sequels in Adventures of Wim (1986) and The Search for the Dice Man (1993) as well as a companion volume called The Book of the Die (2000).[2] Rhinehart wrote several other novels between 1986 and 2016 though none achieved the success of The Dice Man.[1]
- ^ a b Carrère, Emmanuel (7 November 2019). "Who is the Real Dice Man? The Elusive Writer Behind the Disturbing Cult Novel". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 November 2019.
The dice was a quirk the young George picked up in college. He and his friends used it on Saturdays to decide what they were going to do that night. Sometimes, they dared each other to do stuff: hop around the block on one leg, ring a neighbour's doorbell, nothing too mischievous. When I ask, hopefully, whether he pushed these experiences further as an adult, he shrugs his shoulders and smiles apologetically because he can tell that I would like something a little spicier... / It was not clear whether the book was fiction or autobiography, but its author, Luke Rhinehart, had the same name as his hero and, like him, he was a psychiatrist. According to the back cover, he lived in Majorca... 'Psychiatrist? Psychoanalyst?' George repeats, as surprised as if I had said cosmonaut. No, he was never a psychiatrist, he has been a college English teacher all his life... / Really? But on the cover of his book... / George shrugs as if to say, editors, journalists, you know, there is almost nothing they won't write... / ...[Cockroft] handles the wheel with an abruptness that contrasts with his good humour and makes his wife laugh. It is moving to see how the two love each other, and when Ann tells me in passing that they have been married for 50 years, I am not surprised. / They live in an old farmhouse with a yard that slopes down to a duck pond. They have three grown boys, two of whom live nearby. One is a carpenter and the other is a housepainter; the third still lives at home. He is schizophrenic, Ann tells me matter-of-factly; he is doing fine at the moment, but I shouldn't worry if I hear him speaking a bit loudly in his room, which is right beside the guest room where I will be staying.
- ^ a b Adams, Tim (27 August 2000). "Dicing with Life". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
Rhinehart, whose real name is George Cockcroft, made his reputation with the cultish Seventies book The Dice Man, in which the eponymous hero, a psychiatrist, gives over all his decision making to the roll of a die, providing himself with half a dozen potential alternatives for every step he takes through life. / At the time, Cockcroft was... leading a seminar on freedom—Nietzsche and Sartre—and he asked his class... whether perhaps the ultimate freedom was not to 'get away from habit and causality and make all your decisions by casting dice'. His students were either so appalled or so intrigued by the idea that Cockcroft knew immediately that this was something worth writing about. / ...progress on the novel was slow, and by the time he completed it he was 37, living in Majorca with his family... It was there that, by chance, he ran into a publisher in Deya who said he would look at the book. / Some months later when the paperback rights were sold for $50,000, Cockcroft and his family were living a dice life on a sailboat in the Mediterranean. By that time, Cockcroft says, he knew that the dice were probably just a gimmick to have fun with, or to get from one place in your life to another place, 'but once you got somewhere you were happy, you'd be stupid to shake it up any further...'
- ^ Dickson, E. Jane (4 November 2000). "Striptease at the Roll of the Dice". The Times.
- ^ Clark, Alex; Other Telegraph Staff (8 July 2015). "50 best cult books". The Telegraph. London, England: Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
- ^ Fann, Kelly (2011). Trott, Barry (ed.). "Tapping Into The Appeal of Cult Fiction". Reference and User Services Quarterly. 51 (1): 15–18. doi:10.5860/rusq.51n1.15.